Here’s What President Trump Was Doing While Melania Had Kidney Surgery

First Lady Melania Trump underwent kidney surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday and is reportedly expected to remain hospitalized for much of the week. But instead of accompanying his wife to the hospital, President Trump hung back at the White House, where, according to his schedule, he received intelligence and press briefings . . . and had lunch with Vice President Mike Pence in a private dining room.

Just after 5:00 p.m. on Monday, Trump did tweet that he was headed to Walter Reed to visit the First Lady, declaring her procedure “successful,” saying she was in good spirits, and thanking well-wishers. (According to The New York Times, the president also spoke to Mrs. Trump’s doctors.)

But oddly enough—or then again, maybe not oddly at all—Trump’s update on his wife was actually not his first tweet of the afternoon. Twenty minutes before letting the country know the First Lady was okay, he tweeted a tirade on White House leaks—an apparent reference to White House communications aide Kelly Sadler’s reported “joke” in a closed meeting that John McCain’s Senate vote no longer matters because “he’s dying anyway.” (Sadler has since apologized to McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain and, according to the White House, has been dealt with internally.)

More proof that very little, if anything, will stop the president’s online ranting—or rearrange his priorities. (Recall that during the March for Our Lives, Trump went golfing.) This morning, he dispatched another update on the First Lady, saying she was “doing well” and should be leaving the hospital in two to three days. Within 10 minutes, he’d progressed to a rant about Chinese trade negotiations. Sigh.